If you listen closely, you can still hear all the incoherent screaming and exclaims I’ve been yelling out since the credits rolled.
Again, I have to wonder if there are people who aren’t turning into Found, then why the hell not? The series remains the most compelling, emotional, twisty, introspective television airing.
I can’t properly summarize the series of emotions Found Season 2 Episode 11 unleashed within me after that truly jaw-dropping end. But it’s me, you guys, so I’ll do my damnest!
A Neuroatypical Teen’s Disappearance Becomes One of the Series’ Best Cases to Date
Frankly, my hands are still shaking from all of the adrenaline from TJ’s case.
His disappearance coincided well with everything with the Found characters in the past and present. It was the embodiment of what M&A does so well when this series focuses exclusively on its cases and resonated with my soul.
My youngest brother has Autism, and one of the most persistent sources of anxiety for my mother and myself was worrying about how he could be perceived out in the world when he was at his most anxious.
As a young Black man, it’s already challenging enough. However, as a young, Black, neurodivergent man who is hard of hearing and whose anxiousness could be wrongly perceived at the worst moment, or he could easily not hear what’s happening around him? It’s alarming.
It’s stressful on a good day and downright terrifying on the worst days. It’s why the Elijah McClain murder — in a sea of deaths that have piled up to the point of all of these people getting reduced to mere hashtags — has always troubled me in a deeply personal way.
When anything that makes you different can result in your death, it’s terrifying, and when multiple factors can overlap and make the perfect cocktail for something horrific, it’s infinitely worse.
TJ’s father’s anguish and fear were palpable, and I could even feel it deep in my gut because TJ is exactly the type of person who falls through the cracks of the system.
If his case had even made it into anyone else’s hands, it would never have had the best result. When M&A gets these particular cases, it hits even harder how, to many, M&A is a beacon of light and one’s only hope.
It was difficult not to see my younger brother in TJ, but that’s part of what makes this series and the cases when handled well, so impactful. M&A doesn’t hold anything back when consulting with TJ’s fathers.
At times, they extend the empathy and respect that they deserve, such as in the case when TJ’s biological father feared judgment for his past as a substance abuser.
But they also know how to get real with them and extend tough love, something Dhan doesn’t hesitate to do, and Margaret and Gabi express as well when both men withhold pertinent information or allow their animosity toward one another to interfere with finding TJ.
Found Has a Way of Tackling Pressing Social Issues in An Authentic Way
Found never holds back when addressing social issues, but it manages to do so in a manner that feels less overtly preachy or bogged down by chunky dialogue. It opts to keep it real.
My heart dropped to my feet while watching the interaction between TJ and the police.
It was everything his fathers feared because it’s simply a reality of the world we live in that people who are different, like TJ, inevitably could end up on the wrong side of the law, and his skin color and size increased the likelihood.
It was painful to witness, but I appreciated the series addressing that reality without being exploitative of it for the sake of squeezing emotions out of us or triggering its audience. Found allows the emotions from its storylines to come naturally rather than overt attempts to manufacture and manipulate.
They tap into the audience’s humanity and empathy with strong storytelling.
And then, the spotlight shifted to the pitfalls of the foster care system and group homes. Like Margaret, I, too, had a sense of something with Catherine, but I couldn’t quite place it.
When the revelation came that she buried one dead child and TJ, too, it wasn’t so much surprising because we’re sadly used to the horrors of that system in the country, but it was appalling and emotional.
Even with that situation, it served as an indictment of the entire system, when as sadistic as Catherine came across for what she did, the type of bureaucracy that had an essential group home shut down for a year sheds light on multi-prong system-wide issues of a flawed system at all levels.
They’re Not That Far In Miles, But In Socioeconomic Levels, They’re Night and Day
Somehow, in this action-packed, plot-filled hour, they even managed to address the socioeconomic inadequacies of this case.
Sweet TJ only wanted to connect with his brother. And the complexities of the “haves” and “have nots” or “nurture versus nature” hit particularly hard.
TJ came from a world with two loving fathers who weren’t well off. His foster father was likely just getting by, and his birth father was economically and socially disadvantaged.
But a mere few miles away, his brother was living a happy, comfortable life with two loving parents with money, none the wiser that he was adopted.
And he was a beautiful, compassionate, sweet boy. Margaret got that right. It was easy to judge and maybe even loathe his adopted father for paying off TJ’s dad and trying to keep them apart.
But you could also understand how he felt he was protecting his family. Thankfully, his wife didn’t see it that way, and his instinct as a loving, caring mother overrode all.
My heart is so full at the notion that these two brothers can have a relationship, that TJ’s two fathers can co-exist and co-parent this beautiful young boy together. And that this new blended family can thrive off of so much love.
Because the world isn’t kind to people who are different, but if you find a tribe, it makes all the difference.
The Case Connected with Flashbacks as Found Family and Love Perserves
The case also resonated with the past and flashbacks with Gabi and Lacey.
Every little nugget about the past gives us a fuller picture and understanding of the present. I didn’t anticipate becoming as deeply affected by those as I am by present storylines.
Since I’m already pouring my heart out and getting personal, I’ll toss in that in addition to an autistic younger brother, I also have an autistic niece.
My twin niblings are my heart and soul. They’re so vastly different that it’s remarkable. But my niece is non-verbal autistic, and it took until this particular episode for it to click into place how much young Bella makes me think about my own love bug.
Jasmine Washington is such an expressive young actress, and she’s done remarkably well with this difficult arc.
I’ve been in awe of both her and Azaria Carter as they continue to carry the story of these two sisters in the early stages of their healing.
Nothing prepared me for my love for Gina, however. She’s easily my favorite new character of the season, and the maternal energy that she brings to the past and present has grounded this series and been so damn necessary for so much of the ongoing plots.
Gina is Found Season 2’s Most Valuable New Character
It was a huge shock that Gina did figure out that Sir was terrorizing her baby girl, and it wasn’t all in her head.
And she laid out the perfect trap to get him, hoping that she’d have the willpower to take that man clean off of this earth if it meant protecting her children.
For her, it was about both Bella and Gabi. Gina never hesitated to take Gabi in and consider her a child of her own, which further cements the themes of found family that Found handles so beautifully.
Because Found is just as much about found family as it is about finding the missing. Who doesn’t love a title with dual meanings?
The standoff between Gina and Sir had me on the edge of my seat, and I was rooting for Gina when she had that shotgun, even though I knew she’d never pull the trigger.
Gina was all about knowing and studying your enemy, and the way she read Sir for filth regarding his daddy who walked out on him and his “whore mother who didn’t love him” had me screaming at the screen.
Let the record show; I’ve found more excitement in this single episode of Found than I know I will come Superbowl Sunday.
Even Sir had to respect Gina for being a protective mother who would do anything to protect her family. He couldn’t and wouldn’t kill her. But the alarm system did send him fleeing.
How Bella Becomes Lacey: Found’s Sisterhood Origin Story
We finally reached this important and monumental moment for these girls. Gabi was on her way to college, fully realizing that Gina may have had a run-in with Sir and expressing her gratitude for Gina’s protection.
And Bella finally became Lacey, leaving this chapter of horror behind her and getting the fresh start she needed to become exactly the woman we all know and love now.
Seeing Lacey choose her own name, “Cheerful,” just like her, had me misty-eyed, but hearing her utter her first words before they cleared out of that house flared up my allergies so badly I’m still going through tissues.
“Thank you, Gabi” will be everything to me.
The sisterhood between these two women is so deeply special that there aren’t enough words.
I don’t care about the criticisms regarding how they got so close so quickly because Found does a fantastic job of spinning this origin story and tugging at our heartstrings along the way.
Why is Heather Setting Up Christian? I Don’t Know, But I’m INTRIGUED
Found has some of the best villains in the game.
Is Sir evil as hell? Absolutely. But MPG is so fantastic and mesmerizing in this role that I eat up all Sir content.
And while we’ve only had Heather briefly, I’m in the same boat. Like MPG, Danielle Savre is so riveting that I’m already intrigued by Heather, even though it’s as clear as day that she’s not a good person.
I didn’t realize I needed the Gabi/Heather scene together. I was delighted by the way she remarked about Gabi’s beauty and seemed unfazed by her presence.
She seems about as obsessed with Gabi as Sir and Trent, perhaps more intrigued because of their respective obsessions. She smiled at Gabi like a cat ready to pounce on a toy.
Heather is here to play and have fun while doing it, and she’s probably already been doing that in the first place.
She can’t even pretend she’s not a heavy player in this somewhere, but remarkably, poor, foolish Trent hasn’t caught on in the least, and Gabi was too distracted to take note.
Heather’s superficial GSW was so blatantly orchestrated that she was unbothered in that hospital bed. It probably served the plot well that we missed all the hoopla surrounding her rush to the hospital and the entire incident and only got the aftermath.
Heather and Gabi are a Fascinating Potential Dynamic
But she claims that Christian somehow got Trent’s gun (presumably since the theory is that he was the one who dragged Sir out of Trent’s home), and he decided to shoot Heather in retaliation because she’s close to Trent.
Nothing about this makes sense, but the police are so enthralled by the Evans brothers’ chaos that they’re willing to buy into anything.
We last saw Christian pleading with Sir to help him escape since a host of stuff he likely didn’t do was thrown at him, and his face was plastered all over the news, and promptly got knocked out.
Christian is a weird guy, but he’s not like his brother, so it’s not believable that he’s involved in this like the police think, and Gabi doesn’t buy it either.
Heather seemed more intent on having this game of wordplay with Gabi and getting a read on the woman everyone’s obsessed with than trying to convince anyone that her story was real.
But now we wonder why she’s determined to set up both Evans brothers. And if Christian wasn’t at the RV, where is he now? Is he dead?
I’m curious about Heather’s game plan and role in all of this, but she has Trent wrapped around her well-manicured finger and loves every second of the chaos. Me, too, Ma’am.
Sir and Gabi Are in Custody: Two Sides of a Warped Coin
Gabi’s method of playing Sir was delicious. She knew he was in her office when he left the Crucible on her bookcase and had his grubby hands all over her belongings.
It was obvious it was all a setup when everyone seemed to revert back to their animosity against Gabi out of the blue and claimed that they would let M&A die once she went to jail.
They all love M&A too much to give up on people who need them. And they rely so heavily on this work as part of their healing.
Still, catching Sir and the police getting him in custody was a shock. He’s evaded arrest for so long. Trent was so smug and satisfied that he got to sit across from this man, but I snickered a bit because he’s sucked at capturing Sir for so long that he probably doesn’t deserve to be that thrilled.
But now one has to wonder where the missing kids Trent Sr. covered up comes into play and if Sir can use that as some leverage.
He knows that the police took Gabi into custody, too, and frankly, I don’t foresee how they can build a case against this woman if Sir would never give her up and they don’t have any evidence at her house.
But what do I know? I dropped out of law school.
The setup for Heather to be Gabi’s criminal defense attorney is right there for the taking, though, and I’m excited by that prospect.
Something tells me neither Sir nor Gabi will be behind bars for long, and I’m still dying to know how Christian is in play.
Jamie Returns In the Series’ BIGGEST CLIFFHANGER TO DATE
Not only do we have to process that Gabi and Sir are in custody, Christian is in the wind, and Heather is likely shady, but in an hour that quietly explores how much healing and growth Margaret has had over time, Found rewards her with the return of her son.
Jamie is back, and my jaw is officially on the floor over that. I anticipated Jamie’s return, but I also figured that M&A would go back to investigating the case for Margaret, and they’d make moves to find him.
I assumed that somehow Sir’s knowledge would come into play, resulting in a scene between Margaret and Sir, or he’d use it as leverage.
Hell, maybe, somehow, he did. But Jamie appears, looking much older, healthy, normal, and fully aware that Margaret is his mother.
He stepped off a bus at the station where Margaret was banned, recognized her instantly, and initiated communication. This is exciting but also suspicious as hell.
Here is where my favorite character, Dhan, will shine because if anyone is on guard regarding this seemingly impossible situation, it’ll be him.
Margaret is about to allow her elation over her son’s return to overshadow her instincts and superpowers. But with Jamie’s arrival comes a flurry of new questions and concerns.
Where has he been this whole time? Why hasn’t he come back to Margaret? Why did he show up now?
What is he involved in, and who took him? What type of situation do we have?
If anyone followed along with Alert: Missing Persons Unit Season 1, they’ll know how twisted a similar storyline was regarding the return of a missing child after about a decade.
Will we have a similar situation here? Is it really Jamie or an imposter? I’m on the edge of my seat and need more!
Over to you, Found Fanatics.
Tell us all your theories and reactions to this juicy installment!
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